Bankers Cobalt’s DRC project returns 6 metres of 3.6% copper

Bankers Cobalt Corp. [BANC-TSXV; BC2-FSE] said it has discovered elevated cobalt and copper in soil sampling at the Kabolela South project in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Bankers Cobalt is a cobalt and copper exploration and development company focused on advancing a portfolio of permitted concessions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  The company holds rights to 26 separate mineral concessions strategically located in the southern DRC Copperbelt, covering a total area of 391 km². The DRC is the source of roughly 54% of the world’s cobalt production.

The company’s aim is to generate a reliable, certified supply of non-conflict copper-cobalt for existing and new processors in the DRC, which have excess capacity but a lack of available certified resources to meet burgeoning market demands.

Bankers Cobalt President and CEO Stephen Barley said Kabolela North, Hole KADD013 returned 3.69% copper over 6 metres from a depth of 72 metres to 78 metres, extending the zone originally discovered in Hole KADDO11 (3.17% copper over 4 metres from 28 metres) and hole KADD012 (2.01% copper over 6 metres from 34 metres; including 1 metre grading 0.3% cobalt from 39 metres).

Barley said rock chip and soil sampling at Kabolela South has now shown encouraging elevated cobalt and copper results tracking the same stratigraphy as a former operating pit on the southern border of the Kabolela property.

“The exploration efforts at Kabolela continue to increase the potential for this project. Updates on activities at our Kankutu (Kimpe) and Comipad-Comima (292) projects will be released shortly.” Barley said.

Bankers’ DRC exploration manager Adam Anderson said the soil program has highlighted two areas with anomalous copper-cobalt in soils. These areas have been infill sampled and results are pending. “The soil results are interesting as they are constrained to the Roan-4 formation in the southern area which hosts the 48 Hour pit in the same stratigraphy nearby,” he said.

A total of 384 soil samples were collected over the entire Kabolela license on a 5-metre (along line) and 200 spaced lines. Further infill soils are collected to better define the areas with anomalous copper and cobalt soils. Once the infill soils have been processes and plotted on the map, areas with anomalous copper coincident cobalt will be trenched to verify the soil anomaly prior to drilling.

Near surface leaching of metals is the common issue in the DRC Copper Belt. Reverse Circulation drilling will be utilized to test anomalous areas as access improves with the end of the wet season The drilling is expected in late April.

Near the southern boundary of the Kabolela concession is a large dump from the previously operated 48 Hours Mine, which operated between 2014 and 2016 on the basis that only high-grade copper was targeted, and cobalt was discarded as most local processing facilities did not have cobalt processing capability.

Selected grab samples from the area have provided encouraging cobalt and copper results based on laboratory analysis at SGS Lubumbashi.

Bankers Cobalt shares were unchanged at $0.30 on Monday April 9. The shares trade in a 52-week range of 85 cents and 11 cents.